So how do you folks use delay?

bigjon

I use a more extreme setting in the vid above at 34:20 to get more of a high-life bounce. The decay is upped to 4 repeats, the first of which is about 3/4 volume. The timing is still about 375ms

bigjon

The 'Another Brick' setting I use which Mike_L referred to earlier is at 56:50, where I actually use the delay setting to establish the tempo for the song (the repeats are a quaver apart). Still our old friend 375ms, but now 3 repeats with the first one at equal volume to the original note. At 1:00 it sounds properly 'stadium-rock' even on a clean sound. Then at 1:01:30 I (manually!) double the repeat time so the repeats are a crotchet apart and I can harmonise with myself on the fly. 

midiglitch

Personally I'm in a place right now where I use delay as an effect.  What I mean by that is that I'm not using it for ambience in the David Gilmour sense.  I've come to the conclusion that I'm simply not best placed to judge how much reverb and delay is needed on the guitar parts to serve the mix, so I'm leaving that to the sound guy and would rather err on the side of too dry than too wet as every venue adds it's own ambience.

My rule then, for using delay 'as an effect', is that the repeat level is the same as the original signal.  I'm only varying the delay time and feedback.  I like to impose ridiculous limits like this as I find it forces me to be more creative.  Consequently, since I started doing this the delay has crept forward in the chain and I now have it second, after wah, and before all my drives!  With delay into distortion and wet/dry both at 100% every bend sounds like a unison bend and I'm currently loving the way notes crash into each other.  I'm forced to play much less and let the delay/drive combo do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Another thing I'm enjoying doing with this approach is raking chords and sweeping the wah with the rake and then muting and letting the delay repeat out the chord with the filter sweep effect.

Fix your delay level at 100% for an afternoon and see how it forces you to play.  You might enjoy it!

digitalscream

I use modulated delay on almost all my clean and lead tones - Flashback in the "Mod" mode, all controls pointing straight up. It just so happens that it's exactly the right tempo for the songs we have with clean bits in them, and it's also a good setting for adding that epic feeling to solos. It also works well for those strummed octave moments in choruses.

I don't use reverb, because the delay adds enough atmosphere on its own. Still considering a Zoom MS70CDR, though, for those lovely Strymon-style particle reverbs and shimmer as a specific effect.

Travisthedog

I use delay so that when I fuck up, I make sure that my fuck up is repeated to make sure anyone in the audience missed the initial fuck up gets to here te fuck up again

And again

And again






And again

57Deluxe

...oooer - sorry I am late coming to this thread... I was Delayed...layed....ayed...yed...ed...d.... ... ...

ChrisMusic

57Deluxe said: ...oooer - sorry I am late coming to this thread...

I was Delayed...layed....ayed...yed...ed...d.... ... ...

That's what Sunday mornings are for   

Travisthedog

Not when you've Been up all night with two puking kiddies

monquixote

Cheers for the varied and interesting advice chaps. 

I think a Flashback or Carbon Copy should be on my shopping list based on the love for them found on here. 

I'd really love the Mad Prof Bluebird combined delay drive, but they are hens teeth and expensive. 

gusman2x

I'm after playing with more delay. I've started to play more ambient/shoegaze type stuff, and I think adding some more delay in would help. I also love playing Gilmour's greatest hits (badly), so I guess it's a must. I have a dd3, and I'm using it at about 200ms, with repeats that are reasonable in the mix, but tail off quickly. What I really want is a nice modulated analogue (or analogue sounding) delay.

viz

Try an analogue delay too. I have a keeley ibanez AD9. It's apparently good for slap-back and weird feedbacky stuff, but I just use it for ambiance for thickening up solos. I set it to the maximum (300 ms) and have it very low in the mix with 2 or 3 repeats and it just warms up anything you play. I don't know why but you can't really detect it as an effect while you're playing, but when you cut a chord dead you hear the decaying repeats - they sound completely natural. I love it. Because it thickens stuff up and because it's always on, you also find yourself playing fewer notes in chordal structures and rhythm sections rather than defaulting to open chords and power chords all the time, so you end up playing more interesting and lighter stuff. I use that for live and home situations.

for home only, I also use the TC Electronic's double delay and pitch shift features to do silly stuff like Steve Vai's Ballerina (up 900 cents at 300 ms, and up 500 cents at 600 ms) - the delays are crystal clear and like a perfect rendition of the original, and are good as a 'special effect' but counter-intuitively give a very unnatural and synthetic effect therefore.

viz

Tap tempo is great for live situations; we once had to play cotton eye joe with children singing to bring us in, and my guitar was simulating the electronic machine-gun chords at the start of the second line, which had to be in semiquaver time to the childrens' beat. Couldn't have done it without tap tempo. And of course as they sped up during the song, I could keep my machine gun in in pace with them.

mike_l

viz mate, I am never going to let you forget you played "Cotton eye Joe".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>:)

Roland

I use delay in several different ways:

1.  Around 30ms to thicken the sound.  Not a big fan of this because it can play havoc with the tone, but it has its place.

2.  Around 100ms at 12 to 15% to simulate "early reflections" rather than using full reverb in a noisy hall.

3.  600ms for the "big solo" sound.  Don't do many of these to be honest.

My latest discovery is tap tempo with a ducking delay so that the final note of a phrase can repeat into the distance. We're rehearsing Boys of Summer, and need it for the repeating note towards the end of the breakdown.

kelvinburn

monquixote said:

Cheers for the varied and interesting advice chaps. 

I think a Flashback or Carbon Copy should be on my shopping list based on the love for them found on here. 

I'd really love the Mad Prof Bluebird combined delay drive, but they are hens teeth and expensive. 

Definately try a Malekko 616 too. You get more control over the modulation with dedicated knobs. Very good at noisemakery experimental oscilation stuff too

Cirrus

kelvinburn said:

Definately try a Malekko 616 too. You get more control over the modulation with dedicated knobs. Very good at noisemakery experimental oscilation stuff too

Great pedal, not the epitome of reliability though sadly.

Kebabkid

monquixote said:

I'd really love the Mad Prof Bluebird combined delay drive, but they are hens teeth and expensive. 

I like the idea of this pedal too and if I saw one going for £100 (doubt it), I'd nab it because it's a space-saver with quality sounds I could use. However, as pointed out by dindude to me, unless you find a delay setting you want to stay on all the time, those internal delay trim pots may prove annoying and not as easy to get to after a while. 
@monquixote - Nick, have you seen the demos by this guy at Mad Prof? The delay he has at the beginning of this is the sort of thing I'm achieving on the Slapback setting of the TC with the Delay right up and Mix at between 10-12 o'clock.

octatonic

I use my delay like I use your mum: multi-tapped.

ThePrettyDamned

Discovered I can use mine with a qtron to make Sci fi space music today. Pretty cool!

midiglitch

ThePrettyDamned said:

Discovered I can use mine with a qtron to make Sci fi space music today. Pretty cool!

tremolo into q-tron is good fun too!